Goal: 365 days of posts

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Month: August 2011

Having finally finished “Can You Hear My Heart,” I can confirm my previous opinions. Loved the use of chiasm, allegory, foreshadowing, metaphor, redemption, resurrection themes and happy endings. And even though in k-drama someone must always die, what a good way to go. Poetic justice all round. And yay for the reject couple-they totally should go for it. I still want to know though… who were Young Gyu’s real parents?? I bet he’s totally his son-in-law’s uncle. Oh well. He doesn’t care 🙂 Good night world, watch the show for free on viki.com.

Ah, new words every day. Who wouldn’t want to live in the information age? It’s so exciting to be fast-paced and multicultural!

Well, I’ve been out of office for two weeks now, ne? And school is about to start up again. How pathetic, getting hooked on a korean tv show of all things. They’re as melodramatic as Mexicans with less propensity to laugh at themselves. Oh by the way, it’s a very good show. I say this purely and solely as a pitiful attempt at an excuse for neglecting my blog audience of 0. Ok, my give up. Actually I just want to tell someone all about it! Here goes…

16 years ago, when we were all very young, the daughter of a deaf woman fell in love with the boy who would become her step-brother and the mentally handicapped man who would become her father. She followed them everywhere. She carried their bags, mimicked their mannerisms, and tried to make them smile. The man was charmed, but the boy… was a different kettle of fish. Of beta fish, actually, whose kettle was placed a little too close to the mirror. He was clever, and hated having a family who could neither read nor write but only knew how to love.

This family kept mysteriously coming into contact with another family, one on the opposite end of the totem pole from themselves. This other family stunk of wealth, but seemed quite happy-until you saw the way the father and maternal grandfather looked at each other. Regardless, the step-son (so many broken families!) of this successful father befriended the step-daughter of the village idiot and fell head over heels for her. In a series of sensational accidents within the same week, the maternal grandfather and the girl’s deaf mother died, the rich boy had a fall resulting in major concussion and deafness, and the poor boy disappeared.

All of this pain was caused by one man. Is he sorry? Is the girl still waiting? Who are they all in love with now? What’s with all the messed-up mothers and-is one of them a ghost? I’m out of time to tell you, even if I’d finished watching 🙂 But the beauty of the show was in the way one man brought life and the other death, one son made hope and the other lost it, fathers and mothers who abandoned, neglected, and stole or loved, cherished, and nurtured children see the fruit of their own actions in their own lifetime.

One of my favourite bits of C. S. Lewis is from his book The Great Divorce. There he writes of nobody Sarah Smith that all who ever met her became her sons and daughters, and yet came back to their parents loving them more than ever before. All men who met her loved her in a way that made them love their wives. Sarah was married to a manipulative drama king who chose hell over heaven of his own free will. Ok, I admit it, I’m still just a kid. My favourite story is paradox-and Can You Hear My Heart is full of it. Full of people like that. People who deal with life in those two ways-the great ore-sama vs. the one who blesses everyone else. You don’t really have to guess who wins, but how they win is all the fun. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do, blogworld.

I’ve been experimenting with cutting back on internet usage lately. What a quiet week.

There’s nothing like actually finishing your part of a three-person school project early, the day you said you’d do it. And finding time to read library books, or write grandparents, or set up a prayer chain for a former roommate, or clear out space-hogging clutter. The recycling bin gives out very satisfying clunks as it digests your reams of outdated school papers… and unsubscribing from spam feels like dropping another ten pounds into that hungry mouth. You know, it’s just been peaches and cream and chocolate, really. I’m still procrastinating on something major-but hopefully with all this motivation (no internet access) I’ll be able to finish that soon too. Oh, and actually having time to volunteer at church? Priceless.

In all the library surfing, I ran across some great new resources on travel. Scotland is my lifelong dream-fell in love the day I picked up (and probably finished) The Scottish Chiefs. Unfortunately, dreams and money don’t always match up (especially on an aspiring teacher’s salary). Or so I thought. Some people actually make it happen: Chris Guillebeau set himself the goal of traveling to every country in the world by the time he turns 35. He’s self-employed. Thirty-one countries and two years to go. I am suddenly inspired to home-make all my lunches and set up a new savings account. Well, if I ever do buy that ticket, I’ll know what to pack. Ha. Ha. Ha. Just one bag…